Might sound crazy, but years ago before my 5-speed swap I had a similar
problem. After doing everything that John suggests I found that the
release lever was actually bent toward the rear of the car about 1/2
inch. There's a long story why this happened. Anyway, I put the lever
in a BIG vise and (using a 3-foot cheater pipe) bent it forward to its
normal position plus about another 1/4 inch. This took mucho effort but
it worked very well. It drew up the lever end to almost touching the
dust boot of the slave cylinder and pushed the piston further back in
the cylinder bore. That made all the difference in the world for the
feel of the clutch action. Just my 2-cents worth....
Jack
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-spridgets@Autox.Team.Net
[mailto:owner-spridgets@Autox.Team.Net] On Behalf Of John Caffrey
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 3:09 PM
To: Robert Weeks
Cc: spridgets@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Transmission question
Hi Robert,
It does sound like your clutch is not fully disengaging, but I suspect
mechanical problem rather than hydraulic. Slight excess play in the
pivots of the slave pushrod, clutch arm, and master pushrod loose lots
of travel at the throwout bearing. It was annoying me that I had to have
the clutch pedal fully to the floor for disengagement, so after some
checking I replaced all of the worn pivot pins, and welded up the
elongated holes and redrilled them to size. I didn't remove the clutch
arm to check but still made a worthwhile improvement. Check your linkage
closely.
John
Fogelsville, PA
Robert Weeks wrote:
> I have a question about the transmission in my '69 Midget. When I put
> the car back on the road a month or two ago the clutch slave was
> rusted so I replace the clutch master & slave cylinders & the flexible
> line. The replacement master was not the same as the original, it came
> in a kit from VB and must be off some later model car.
>
> It took forever to get the system bled. I used a mity-vac and then
> bled it to old fashioned way. Then I drove it a few hundred miles and
> bled it again. At this point I don't think that there is any air in
> the line or at least I'm not seeing any come through in the bleeding.
> I had my wife press on the clutch pedal and when she pressed on the
> clutch I could see the pin move in the slave maybe 3/4" - 1". How far
> should the pin travel to fully release the clutch?
>
> I'm having a hard time getting the car to shift into first. I have to
> really shove it into first sometimes and I want to make sure that I'm
> not screwing things up. It seems to go into reverse just fine and is
> pretty good shifting into the other gears most of the time.
>
> My question is does this sound like the clutch line is still not
> totally bled or does this sound like some other problem? One other
> thing I've noticed is that if I push the clutch pedal down while
> driving in 2nd - 4th gear the clutch disengages and the engine RPMs
> drop, but in first gear the RPMs don't drop until I've shifted out of
> first gear and sometimes it can be hard shifting out of first.
>
> Thanks,
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